“I talked to Diaz today, and I made him an offer, so we’ll see what happens,” White said. “He had been talking about going to 185 pounds. [Lyoto] Machida has been talking about going to 185 pounds. So we wanted to see if he wanted to fight Machida at 185…They said they’d get back to me.”

On the other side of the coin, fellow Brazilian and occasional training partner of Machida, Vitor Belfort, has seen a career resurgence as of late, knocking out Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold in back-to-back contests. And while it’s rare to see a fighter coming off a loss paired against one coming off a win, that’s exactly what Dana White has in mind. The Baldfather recently told Ariel Helwani, who in turn relayed the message on MMA Tonight, that he “loved” the idea of seeing a Machida vs. Belfort co-main event at UFC 167, which goes down in Vegas on November 16th. Here’s the catch: The fight would be held at middleweight.

Given Belfort’s recent refusal to fight anyone (looking at you, Tim) at 185 unless it’s for a title shot, this seems like wishful thinking on White’s part. There’s also the fact that Lyoto has never fought below 205, although he has stated in the past that he would be willing to make the cut for the right fight. On top of all that, Belfort has already called out Chael Sonnen and would stand next to no chance of getting licensed in Vegas with a TRT exemption. So yeah, expect Belfort to shoot this matchup down any. second. now.

Last night, Deadspin posted newly leaked footage from The Day the Clown Cried, a never-released Jerry Lewis movie about “a clown in a concentration camp who entertains Jewish children as they are led to their deaths.” That film should have never made it to production in the first place, just based on its horrific premise alone. But it was actually completed in 1972, and would have made it to theaters if the movie’s producers didn’t have the good sense to bury it. Since then, it has become one of cinema’s greatest urban legends, only viewed by a handful of Jerry Lewis’s friends.

If there is an MMA equivalent to The Day the Clown Cried, it’s this: A 2007 Spike TV special called “Bad Blood: Dana White vs. Tito Ortiz” which follows the UFC president and former light-heavyweight champion as they prepare for a three-round boxing match, which was organized only because of their mutual dislike. The premise is just as absurd, the footage is just as embarrassing, and luckily for humanity, the fight never happened.

In fact, the 90-minute special ends with the revelation that the fight isn’t happening. Ortiz fails to show up to the weigh-ins — which he claims was due to a contract dispute — and the Nevada State Athletic Commission officially cancels the proceedings. So in a way, this video is also MMA’s version of Geraldo’s visit to Al Capone’s vault, in terms of pathetic anti-climax. But in this case, we were spared an indulgent freak show on top of a serious lose-lose situation for the UFC: Either Dana White gets his ass kicked on cable TV, or a 37-year-old fight promoter out-strikes a future Hall of Famer. It wouldn’t be a good look in either scenario, and we can’t help wondering if it was all just hype in the first place.

(One of these men is on the brink of a world title shot. The other plans on penis-smacking himself in Mexico. You tell us which promotion helps build stars. Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting.)

Dave Chappelle once pondered what it would be like to be so famous that you could get your dick sucked and the person that sucked your dick would in turn also become famous. Someone who can probably relate to that level of power is UFC President Dana White. While he has yet to make anyone famous for giving him a hummer (besides Arianny, of course. *self five*), all White has to do is merely allude to a newsworthy piece of information and every MMA blog in the world jumps on it like it’s the word of God. I’m not the only one who sees the similarities there, right? Also, does anyone else see these fuckin’ iguanas on my coffee table?

Dana [White] and Joe [Silva] have confirmed, with a strong victory by Glover, then he probably gets the winner of the Jon Jones fight. Glover’s got an opportunity to go for that belt with a big win, so we’re expecting big things in Belo Horizonte.

As you would expect, MMA blogs across the board are jumping all over this statement and claiming that “a title shot is now on the line” for Glover Teixeira. Those of us who are at all familiar with Dana White, however, know that when he throws aroundthe words “probably” and the phrase “with a strong victory,” he means “unless a more lucrative option becomes available.”

In any case, Belfort’s wife/manager, Joana Prado, recently spoke on his behalf, telling Combate that the Kennedy matchup “didn’t make sense.” Which in today’sMMA landscape, means “give him a week to come around.”

It doesn’t make sense that Vitor, who is No. 1 in the rankings, should fight against No. 2, No. 6 or No. 10 in his weight class. His next fight in the middleweight class will be against the winner of Chris Weidman vs. Anderson Silva. If the UFC wishes him to fight in any class above middleweight, we are at their disposal. It can be anyone, Tim Kennedy, even Roy Nelson, but it has to be at 205 pounds or heavyweight – he’ll even fight as a heavyweight. Vitor wants to fight, but in his weight class, only if for the belt.

As oddly as that was worded, we kind of understand Belfort’s logic here.

(SPOILER: No apology is made at any point in the video, which is actually worse than you’re assuming it is.)

In yesterday’s link dump, we shared a video of Dana White’s appearance on ESPN2′s “Highly Questionable” on Wednesday, where he had some harsh things to say about Sports Illustrated. To refresh your memory: Following UFC 162, SI.com published a roundtable discussion that implied that the main event may have been fixed. Watching legitimate, informed journalists debate whether or not a fight was fixed simply because the underdog won would have been cringe-worthy enough, but they took things to a whole new extreme by making it painfully obvious that two out of the three participants in the discussion didn’t even watch the fight. Needless to say, Dana White was not amused, and it showed during his segment on “Highly Questionable.”

There was absolutely no way that Sports Illustrated was going to let one of their biggest rivals trash them like that, so they immediately set out to create the perfect rebuttal. What they came up with was a phone conversation between Maggie Gray and Dana White, and words cannot describe how awkward it was to listen to.

You really have to feel bad for Maggie here. She was asked to defend what was arguably the worst piece of mainstream sports journalism this side of “The Patriots should have known Aaron Hernandez would turn out to be a murderer,” despite the fact that she wasn’t even involved in the discussion. It’s not exactly an enviable position to be in, especially when you’re against one of the most outspoken men in sports.

A quick apology and follow-up interview about the rematch between Weidman and Silva would have been a safe play, but don’t worry, that doesn’t even come close to happening. Instead, Maggie uses the most condescending tone possible while discussing the roundtable that was totally just about combat sports in general (it wasn’t), yet somehow managed to offend Dana White (maybe all that fight fixing stuff). Any remaining doubts that the upcoming interview would be a total clusterfuck are erased when Maggie concludes her opening statement with the MMA-ish non-sequitur “After sparring a few rounds – no one tapped out! -we moved on discussing the rematch between Weidman and Silva.”

MMA history contains many compelling “what ifs” that could’ve changed the fate of the sport. If one path is taken, disaster. If another path is taken, absolution.

Some “what ifs” are more compelling than others. Not much changes if Floyd Sword or Rudyard Moncayo decides to never step into the cage. The timeline remains intact if Anderson Silva doesn’t get a DQ loss against Yushin Okami at Rumble on the Rock. But there are scenarios where the entire sport can change — where the timeline can split like in Back to the Future Part II.

This is the start of a series at CagePotato where we examine such scenarios, using historical fact to help create realistic historical fiction. Here is our first historical conundrum:

What if Vince McMahon Purchased the UFC in 2001?

In 2001, Vince McMahon’s WWE (then WWF) purchased the decaying WCW and the fledgling, bankrupt ECW. That year, McMahon’s XFL hosted its first (and only) season. It was quite a year for Vinny Mac. He destroyed his two rivals and expanded into a new sport.

2001 was also the year that Zuffa purchased the UFC from the company’s original owners, SEG. SEG was cash-strapped and could no longer carry the burden of running an MMA promotion in a country that was, at the time, hostile to MMA. The Fertitta Brothers bailed out Bob Meyrowitz and SEG, and the rest is history.

But what if, for one reason or another, The Fertitta brothers didn’t buy the UFC and give it to Dana White like they were tossing their kid the keys to the Ferrari? What if Vince McMahon decided to add another three letters to his shopping list…U, F, and C?

Never put too much stock in the words of a man who has just been knocked out. Anderson Silva seemed to insist to interviewer Joe Rogan immediately after getting KO’d by Chris Weidman at UFC 162 a week ago that he was not interested in a rematch.

But there was the language barrier thing and the typical Anderson Silva cryptic speech thing to take into account but perhaps more than anything — we were listening to the stream of consciousness reactions of a freshly concussed man. Maybe that’s why UFC President Dana White has spent almost every minute since insisting to the media that the mega-rematch between “The Spider” and “The All-American” would definitely happen.

And, it will. The middleweight title clash is now scheduled to take place December 28th as the main event for UFC 168. The organization’s big New Year’s Eve show will also feature the women’s UFC bantamweight title rematch between Ronda Rousey and Meisha Tate II as its co-main event.

White told Yahoo! Sports that he believes the Weidman/Silva rematch will be the biggest fight in the organization’s history. “White several times Saturday said he thought the bout would be the biggest in UFC history and said he thought it could do between 1.2 million and 1.4 million on pay-per-view,” they reported.

“The UFC does not release its pay-per-view figures, but it is believed that UFC 100, at 1.25 million, is the best-selling pay-per-view the promotion has done.”

Anderson Silva released a short taped statement to ESPN telling fans, “I back. Trust me. I back.” Of course, that was followed by a wink.

Well, this is interesting. The Nevada State Athletic Commission didn’t grant any new therapeutic use exemptions (TUE’s) to fighters for last Saturday’s UFC 162 event but they did grant the first ever TUE for prescription opioid Suboxone to Chris Leben.

The middleweight lost a split decision to Andrew Craig at UFC 162. He has been winning an even more important battle for sobriety, however.

MMA Junkie has been following the story. “The veteran fighter’s exemption offers proof of his efforts to get clean following a well-documented struggle with drugs. In November 2011, he tested positive for oxycodone and oxymorphone following a loss to Mark Munoz at UFC 138 and was suspended by the UFC for one year. It was the second time the promotion benched him following a positive test for the synthetic anabolic stanozolol in October 2008,” they wrote.

Leben has been to rehab and says he’s been sober for fifteen months. Addiction to pain killers is one of the least-talked about pandemics in MMA so Leben deserves credit for making his struggle public.

The NSAC also deserves credit for recognizing when certain controlled substances should be allowed for use by athletes. Better that Leben take a strong opiod under a doctor’s care while during the training and fighting that causes his body pain, than he self-medicate unbeknownst to anyone.

As for his active MMA career, Leben has now lost three fights in a row, and four out of his last five. He is only thirty two years old but has been fighting professionally for eleven years and that takes a toll on the body and mind.

For his part, Dana White told reporters after UFC 162 that he is concerned for Leben, unsure if the TUF 1 veteran will be kept on in the UFC as a fighter but also seem to express a desire to help Leben stay productive and make a living. ”Chris Leben has the type of personality that can go off the deep very easily in a lot of negative ways. I really care about the kid,” White said.

Yesterday morning I watched the video of Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar’s UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which is embedded at the end of this post. Really, I watched to see and hear from Bonnar.

Nothing against Forrest. I love watching the guy fight and he embodies everything that is great about MMA, but I’ve always had a special interest in “The American Psycho.”

Bonnar, or “RoboCop” as they used to call him back in Chicago where he trained with Carlson Gracie Sr. and began his career, was just the second guy I ever interviewed for a professional story, back in 2005. The guys you’ve covered for nearly the entirety of their careers always hold a special place in your heart.

I interviewed Bonnar a number of times over the first few years of his UFC career but since then I have only connected with him a couple times for interviews. The last time I spoke with Stephan was over the telephone for a feature at UFC.com when he came out of retirement to fight Anderson Silva last year. It has been a rough roller-coaster year for Bonnar — who sort-of retired after putting together a three-fight win streak in the Octagon, came back only to be shredded by Silva at UFC 153, retired again (for real this time), had a son, and failed a drug test for steroids — and I was interested in what he had to say at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

It just made sense. The two of them lifted The Ultimate Fighter and the UFC out of obscurity with their epic slobber-knocker in the season one finale. Griffin won, but Bonnar fought so well that he too was given a UFC contract.

In all, Bonnar would have two razor-close decision fights with Griffin, who himself made history as the first-ever fully unified (UFC, Pride, Pride Grand Prix) linear 205-pound champion. For nearly a decade, Bonnar fought the best and toughest the UFC had to offer and the only guy to truly out-class him was Anderson Silva. That fight, of course, happened because Bonnar was willing to come out of retirement and help save an event for the UFC and the fans.

There’s good reason to believe that professional mixed martial arts would not exist today if not for the UFC. There’s also good reason to believe that the UFC would not exist today if not for TUF 1, and the unforgettable climax that Griffin and Bonnar provided in their finale bout.